The comicbook Mike Carey and I have been conjuring up is starting it's run in comicbook stores around the country September 20 2006..."Wetworks:Worldstorm". This will be an ongoing "rant" exclusively pertaining to the creative process of the art and story. This endeavors sole purpose is to let comicbook fans obtain an insiders look into the creative and fun job of creating a modern comicbook.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Here's the cover for WW#5. You don't see this on the Wildstorm site because it wasn't finished in time for solicitations (when they announce a comic book usually four months before it goes to print). I had the bare bones meat of the image done but none of the background and nitty gritty detail of the actual figure. Again, this is a full computer painting, done in Photoshop except for the fairy sparkles done in Painter...

For the fans this is a beast. It is usually a criminal vampire that lives its entire life in beast mode. It is forced into the bestial state by the psi-powers of a BeastMaster. It is controlled by him at all times, so he must stay near a Beast. Powerful BeastMasters, ones that hail from Royal Vampire Bloodlines are said to be able to control many Beast at once. These Beast are the Shocktroops of the Vampire Nation. They are the enforcers of the Nations laws. Notice the metallic armbands and oversized metallic boots the Beast always wear, these are safety mechanisms. Should a BeastMaster loose control of his charge or suddenly die these metallic bands activate powerful magnets that lock the Beast's arms and legs together rendering him immobile...so yes, this cover signifies the Vampire Nations return to Wetworks...

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

The first scene with Vascar feeding in mid-flight on a handglider, and the next scene with a Werewolf in full beast mode both show a vampire and a werewolf in beast mode but in control of themselves. A very tiny clue which is hard to see is that the clothes on both of them are not ripping or tearing. A sign that both of these creatures come from a world where they design clothing to make adjustments for transforming. In this case clothing made with rubber like stretching qualities.

Another thing to notice is the army green soldiers are the ones advancing while the high tech soldiers stay by Danes side to protect him.

During the interrogation scene we start to learn a few things about Ashe. Namely he being a werewolf (and in this moment in human form) (again notice now in his smaller size form as a human his clothes still fit him). A mall not notice the insignia on Dane's sleeve, that's the new Wetworks logo.

The next scene with Vascar in the alleyway bears a continuity blooper which won't become apparent until issue #4. Vascar is dressed as he is dressed in issue #4 but in issue #4 he has two stripes on the front of his jumper. The correct version is the one with stripes. This is my fault. That's what you get when you as a penciller don't keep track of your pages. You see issue #4 there is a big flashback with Vascar and others wearing the same outfit.

I really like everything about this scene. It's a great intro for Vascar and the kind of a person he is and it sets-up events to come all in two pages. The addition of strong white highlights (by Wendy) really add to the form of the figures and most importantly the mood of this scene. Here also is where we strongly establish the broken shadows motif that follows Vascar and his dastartly actions. Large irregular blocks of black used as a mood enhancing design element...here they are in full black ink while in later issues we play with changing the opacity and color of this blocks...all part of experimenting with the medium...

The next page with Mother still unconscious we see one of the code "enhancements" done to this page to keep it safe for kiddies. Yup, this issue also was originally done when this new relaunch was gonna be for mature readers only.

The next scene holds lots of little touches. The computer guy is Dane's man. He is the Wetworks complex head geek. We also see next to Dane in panel four Dane's attache, the one we were introduced to in the second preview. This is the guy who runs the Wetworks complex. And also notice Dane's gaurds flanking the jumpjet.

Next we show Dane levitating the team down to San Francisco. Here we showoff another of Dane's abilities and thereby start to get into dangerous ground. It's called the Superman complex, when a hero gets too powerful, too infalleable, he becomes boring because no one can beat him. Which is why Kryptonite was created for Superman. So we must create something to bring Dane down a couple of notches. The hint is the headgear he wears, which is the result of an event in Dane's past...which we will slowing reveal as the book goes on...not now...

Originally Mike had Mother fully waking in issue #1 I told him I thought after having her dead for all this time and then wake her up right away was to subservient to the story and therefore her wakening should spread out and take longer and have complications so we can later allude to errors in her reboot...so the prior Mother scene in this issue and this brilliant Frankenstein-ish wake up scene was Mike's answer. This exemplifies the kind of working relation we had. I would suggests things and explain my point of view and if he saw my point he would deftly weave it into his story as if it were apart of his original first take.

In the next few scene's we see the team for the first time in combat and it's not that pretty, in the sense that it's not a coordinated attack, it's sloppy, it eventually results in a win of sorts but not a decisive clean win. We also start to see Mike weaving this new kind of a battle field, the Dead World. We have already established this other world and it's creatures that can transgress into our world and now we introduce a character (Ab-death) that can effect them in their world. A new possibility. We start to see as readers a new need. Question is can Wetworks answer that need. Is the original team or this new team equipped to handle this new battle field? This is a conscious effort to expand the reason for reviving this book and its characters.

Notice too how even tho' Dane doesn't understand exactly what Ab-death did and how he did it he quickly and quietly accepts the win and immediately sees the new threat and the path he must take and goes. This is pure Dane, pure military. He doesn't understand why the creature exploded but knows it has something to do with Ab-death accepts it and files it away for later use. This means he doesn't fully accept Ab-death either. Notice also he doesn't berate Red and Ab-death for the sloppiness of the fight but blames only himself. He is the leader and it is his fault if he hasn't pulled his team together properly. So you can bet he is on his silent intercommunications system and is putting the old team on alert...what started as a simple mission of capturing a single lone vampire is growing into a complicated mess...how big will it get...how much must Dane adjust his resources to this growing threat...where is this all leading?

Attached image is a compilation of some of the sketches done for Vascar...all done on a computer tablet PC...

This is the issue where we really get into Mike Carey's territory...horror. We start in a disco, where any decent Vampire with delusions of granduer would galavant in. It is after hours and Dane and the S.F. Police are on the scene. They are shifting thru the remains of forty odd bodies, or parts of bodies. I love how thruout this scene with the police sargeant Mike handles all of the characters and places them in their proper positions. Notice rarely is anyone is just standing there, except Dane who's role in most situations is to stand there and oversee the situation and give orders. I think Mike would indeed make a great movie director.

Then we have the next scene, which is exactly what I had hope Mike would bring to the series, Vascar's mystical version of a human computer. Fingers for a keyboard, hearts for harddrives, eyes for a monitor, and a head for a CPU...brilliant. And to add to it the constant tension in dialogue between the Blood Box and Vascar...I could just imagine this scene playing out on the big screen.

The interaction of Dane and the eam in the next scenes is a wonderful part of working with a writer who loves his characters and how they would fit together. Mike and I had talked a little of how they would work together like a CSI team/detective team piecing together pieces of a puzzle and that driving the plot. Here we see the whole team individually contributing. That's how you build a team put them into a situation and watch them work together.

More than anything else this issue (in terms of just the team) we watch and see a new kind of a team form. In the original series we watched as an attack team was put together. We introduced individuals that together formed a complete team designed to attack and destroy a target. Here we are now seeing a team assembled together that solves problems/tracks targets. A wholly different team than the original Wetworks. That is a conscious effort, I wanted to bring back the original team as it was. It worked so well as they were...assembled killers. But I realized that's all they were. Even Mother who is smarter and more analytical she still is at the core a killer too, and therefore limited. In any effort to revisit the Wetworks world I realized we must expand on its theme somehow. My solution was adding a new kind of a team, a new team that would complement the old team. As we progress in the series we will see that this new team tho' individually they are made up of great fighters, together they are best put to the task of analyzing and tracking.

We have seen the new team in a fight already and we will see them in countless more fights but we will also show that this team is not really built for action. As in issue two where they fought the "oil slick" creature, Dane and Red at best held their own with the creature never really hurting it. Ab-death dealt the final blow to the creature but no one including himself understood what he actually did. Analytically we can look at this team and see we have Ashe, who is a loner, Ab-death who is not quite sure who he is and what he is capable of, and then we have Red, who is trained as a lone bodygaurd and Dane, who is a leader. These pieces do not fit together to make a cohesive attack team. They don't fit together well...at least in terms of fighting enemies.

The gratuitous violence in the BART train scene was my fault. The plot originally had Vascar break the driver's neck. I felt after smashing the guys face into a building (in issue #2) snapping a neck was too tame for this character. Vascar always needs to show he is better, more powerful, suave, disgusting, over the edge...crazy.

The next scene is the first reveal of the consequence of Mothers new configuration. In the original series she was bionic, mostly human but with bionic enhancements. Now she is almost entirely tech with very little organic matter. As such she can control every inch of her tech body. Here for her vain side she was built with tech skin which she can manipulate in any way she desires. She can reinforce parts of herself by layering, she can reform her tech skin into any kind of a weapon desired. She can remotely connect to any signal or system. She can even play online games.

Notice the clothes and adornments Vascar is wearing. There was much talk about Vascar's demeanor. He is to be very avantgarte, very much like a Rockstar, a showboater, flamboyant, an exhibitionist. I had drawn up about ten possible outfits for him to wear so Mike and I could make sure we were on the same page with where we wanted Vascar as a character to go. If we had more time, and if readers were more willing to wait to see things progress I would have liked to seen alot of scenes with Vascar out on the town. I would have like to have seen him in the VIP lounge of the disco with celebrities.

As we see with the last few scenes the team is not all that together in terms of fighting or even capturing even one target. They just don't work well together. They don't see things as one. Therefore as a fighting team they are destined to lose more than they win. So here Vascar escapes to live another day to drive the plot further. But before he leaves we see that he can indeed be hurt.

We end with Ashe transporting Dane and Mother to his world of Thea Mater...the world of old fashion Science fiction/fantasy. The world I am at home with.

Mike deftly shows us boat loads of horror and then easily segways us into sci-fi. That is the core of the book. The idea that the superhero genre actually contains within itself any genre easily is I think becoming more and more reality. The way modern comics have broken the barrier of the superhero was to expand its worlds into other genre's....

Attached is a compilation of sketch's done for Buller, again all done on the computer, no paper was harmed...

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Got behind on the blog so I am posting an online reminder to myself to accomplish by end of next week to have post on commentary for Wetworks issues #2 and #3. #2 came out a month ago and #3 just last week. Also I want to post the actual art process of how I draw now...there you have it by end of next week three new post...

BTW-attached image is just me testing out color pencils and markers with acrylic highlights, notice the Batman. Did that about a month before I started drawing Batman...so I guess it was my first official rendition...

Been gone awhile doing this that and the other thing and am finally back. Everything that happens and effects Wetworks you will read about here. Alot has been happening, mostly work on Batman, but what had me off kilter for the last month was my diabetes. After three years of good regular blood sugar controls my pancreas is failing, meaning it is not producing the correct amount of insulin. In fact less and less. So for the past few weeks I have been on insulin injections to keep my sugar levels continuously even as possible. The reason I am telling you all about this is that what it means is when my sugars are out of control I can't concentrate and can't work. When my sugars are good little buggers I can concentrate evenly and work my butt off. It also means that if you see me at a convention I will be taking strict meal breaks every four hours. So I ask you all out there for patience while I try to adjust my life to the inevitable ups and downs of my condition.

Personally it's kinda disappointing to have to be taking insulin injections. I have been trying so hard since my diabetic coma in the summer of 2000 to keep my sugar levels normal, but my Doc says no matter what I do my pancreas failing was an inevitability. It was just a matter of time.

This isn't the end-all there are many, many other diabetics worst off than I. I've had relatively an easy time with my diabete's. For that I thank GOD. I've got many, many, many years of productive art ahead of me. It's just a matter of adjusting my life style to fit my condition. As simple as that. It has taken me all these years since 2000 to retrain my artistic brain to draw again. All this time to recalibrate my artist eye to see the world as I use to see it. My hand to reliably follow the minute, subtle commands my brain gives it artistically.

You can't understand what my mind went thru that one day before August of 2000 I could draw with the ease that a lifetime of art training had given me and then in one day to wake up after losing one week in my life and all of a sudden thirty pounds lighter, not being able to walk, in fact barely being able to stand, but most important not being able to draw anymore. My mind could see what I wanted to draw but my hand couldn't accomplish it. It was six months before I could pick up a pencil again and draw SOMETHING, anything. It was a year later before I could draw somewhat like I use to. My biggest problem being not being able to "see" with my eye whether things like eyes and ears were aligned or even the same size. Sometimes I couldn't even see if what I had drawn was any good at all. In 2002 to 2004 I had thought I had it back and as you could see by the uneven quality of some of my work then like StormWatch. I was still being effected by my diabetes.

The last two years are joyous ones for me because my condition was under control most of the time and I was able to draw six issues of Wetworks and four issues of Batman with the style and quality very reminiscent of my old style.

Now is another time of adjusting for me but thankfully I can still draw. I am feeling great especially because now and for the last two years I can draw anything I want to...again. Wait til you see what I have in store for our guys and gals in gold. I've got so much planned for them. I am thrilled by the response so far to the storyline and can't wait til you see what's to come...

Attached is the cover to WW's #6 my fave cover so far of the new series...

For old fans this was one of the covers for the original series. It's never been seen like this in the original pencil state. The pencils were used just as a guideline for colorist Alex Sinclair to fully paint the cover. I believe this was the very first fully computer painted cover to be published. As requested by a fan here it is in its original form as pencils only.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Before I go into my thoughts on WW #2 I wanted to say something about color. Color is really where the artist in me comes from. I love just amazing at how color works and am always experimenting with color especially on the computer.

Now you say with so much interest and experience with computer coloring for comics how come some pages of WW's #1 and #2 printed dark?

Rich Friend e-mailed me a week before the book went out, he was reviewing his advanced copies (I hadn't gotten mine yet) and informed me that the colors were dark for #2 and it was hard to see his inks. When I finally got my copies (two weeks later) I had to apologize to Rich and agree. So it was off to conferencing with Wendy the colorist and comparing our monitors with the actual printed comicbook pages. So we used that information to look at the color for #3. In #2 the blues were getting too dark and saturated (but looked fine on the monitor) and the reds were turning slightly grey and muddy. Unfortunately there were few blues in #3 to compare so final adjustment on the blues will have to wait til probably #4. #3 should be fine.

Now this may sound all kinda in exact...well it is. There are some standards in the industry and some benchmarks to check to see if colors are gonna get too dark BUT there are too many variables to be exact and precise everytime. The main culprit is the paper.

In the Image days (when money was like confetti) we got printers proofs which were one off prints of the books before the full print run was started. Therefore we could check things like if the black lines were matched with the color but more importantly to see if the colors printed anything like what they looked like on our computer monitors. Like I said the problem is paper. Paper is a finite resource and must be regulated or there soon will be no more paper. So paper quality is constantly changing. Now we may get use to a certain paper grade and the colorist has adjusted (thru months and months of comparing their files to the printed book to adjust their colors) then all of a sudden the paper changes and we have to readjust again. Nowadays we have no idea what paper is being used to print our books. Wendy was never informed what paper WW's was gonna be printed with. Now thats not an excuse that's just a reality.

The second culprit is our monitors. Go to look at expensive Plasma TV's standing next to each other and you'll find that these thousand dollars screens none of them have the same color and black and white contrast. More so for cheap computer monitors. There are calibrating devices out there but they cost alot of money and you have to constantly recalibrate them. I know of some advertising companies that calibrate everyday. Comics, let alone freelance colorist working out of their homes cannot afford that. So what do they do? They adjust...Alex Sinclair is so use to his bad monitor that he can look at it and it looks dark and muddy but he knows thats just his monitor and the book should print fine. But then again every now and then he gets a book and it doesn't do what he expected and its because a new paper was used.

Anyways, so what we are left with is like the old X-Men days where we do the best we can and then when the book goes to print we compare and adjust for the next issue and then compare that printed issue with how we adjusted and adjust again. Meaning it is a long and non-exact business.

Now to complicate matters more there's this thing of me loving to experiment with computer coloring. I was part of the three musketeers (Brian Haberlin, Alex Sinclair) that figured out how to use Photoshop to color comics. I am also a painter having been trained by Joe Chiodo. So I am constantly adjusting the way we color comics now to reach that as yet unattainable goal of replicating the painting technique in comcs. Nowadays it can be achieved (I mean the painting look) but not yet in such a standard that you can teach it to any new aspiring colorist and have them do it consistently day in and day out.

Now painting means giving the illusion of 3-dimensional form. To do that you must use a mix of saturated color to form the deep sides of an object, then you need color with little white added to it to give the illusion that the tops of objects are in your face. Unfortunately when you add white (or black) to a saturated color it starts to deaden the color and it gets flat. Primarily comics are colored using these flat colors, because they are so light that they allow the black ink lines to show, but because they are flat the overall effect is a flat object. I have found that the bigger the contrast between colors in an object the better the illusion of 3D form. Meaning if there is a big difference between the darkest color and the lightest color the more the overall realness of a drawing is. Unfortunately again the saturated colors needed for that contrast tend to be dark and cover up the ink lines that alot of people want to see. So it is a balancing act to say the least and the only way to test it, to perfect it is in the final print.

So yes it is ultimately my fault for all the pages that printed dark because I dictate the direction artistically this book goes. We are on this end trying everyday we can to adjust and adjust so that one day you'll all see exactly what I am seeing in my head art-wise...

I wanted a to tryout the new Media Center PC's so I could have a PVR to record shows, so I got an HP Pavilion dual core and everything. It's been fantastic and I like the way it's entertainment software is being designed. I think it is the future where we will see computers built around taking all of the information on the internet and making it easily accessible. Where you just ask for some info and your computer knows where on the internet to find it, knows how to classify it for later use, and knows how to present it to you when you ask for it. No more hunting down add-ons, or obscure programs to aggregate between and then finding another program to play it.

Anyways, in all of my twenty some years playing with all kinds of computers I've never had a harddrive go bad on me (knock on wood). I've had crashes and system failures but never an actual harddrive die. Well I spent all last week (hence little posting from me) doing just that. Thanx to HP service personel what could have been hell (since I also got the flu last week...headache season for a diabetic like me) was actually a pleasant experience. When my system first crashed hard I recovered only to find half my system files gone. I went online and found HP's online chat service with a tech. In five minutes I was typing away with Radmund from HP. He cooly detailed my problem and ten minutes after I got offline with him his pleasant spoken manager called me on the phone and approved sending me Recovery discs to try to reinstall my system. Two days later I had the disc in hand only to discover with the recovery discs that the harddrive was "in immiment danger of failing please replace harddrive" This time I called up HP and another "cool customer" Krish gets on and with a few quick test authorizes me a new harddrive. In no time Fed. ex. is at the door with a fresh new drive and here I am up and running again...so again thanx to the cool cats at HP...

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Here is the full sized version of the cover and a cropped portion of the cover before FX and final lighting...

This and some of the other covers you will see are cropped ever so tightly. That is because way back when, we were gonna do something the studio called "widescreen covers" where there would be blocks of color along the top and bottom of the comic book and the image layed in between the blocks of color. So as you see this cover is basically a square, as opposed to the usual "tall" rectangle covers are usually drawn with. They scapped that idea a long time ago (tho' after I drew the covers)so my covers were then cropped to fit on a regular tall rectangular cover...

Another bit 'o trivia, the cover to WW's #1 is a regular proportioned cover because it was originally drawn as a promo piece. Editorial liked it so much they rallied for it to be the cover to #1...

Monday, October 23, 2006

I don't know why the thumbnails of the last three pages of the second preface story didn't load? Yet if you click the links they will take you to the full size versions of those pages...hhhhmmmmmm....

Awhile ago I added two links...Gallery-is a link to a great website that has been up for some time. It holds alot of my comics work. We will be using this site to showcase alot of new art...thanx a million to Rafa and Kyle...we owe you...

Gerry-Is the massive and massively important site of not only a good friend but someone who once was my art director when I had an advertising/Art studio now he has done tons of great comics inking over myself and Lienil Yu and has recently gone back to his first love of publishing great acclaimed indie books the latest of which is "Elmer" an intriging dissertation of human society featuring a sentient rooster. I point out his site because his site holds the Philippine Komix historical gallery holding and honoring the great Pilipino artist of the past who paved the way for us current pinoy artist...we must all remember them that came before us...

Last may I say that this blog is for me a personal trip...therapy. And it is dedicated and for those that are interested in the inner details and processes of "creating" a modern day comic book. At least the way I've been doing it for the last twenty years. So a warning to those that want to enjoy the Wetworks book on its own merits, this blog will take apart bit by bit every aspect of the process and will reveal (as with the last post) all of the many inner details of the story that did not and should not have made it to the final script but are apart of the process that we edited down to create the final version we now are seeing in print...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Now the second story was written by Carey and I think you start to see how complicated yet subtle he can be. Which is why he is the perfect choice for Wetworks.

By this time Mike had had enough time to figure out his timeline for WW's. It was all approved and we were ready to roll. Since this was Mike's first pass at WW's I decided to let him draw first blood. Let him write whatever he wanted so I could see what his plans were and how well his ideas could be integrated into WW's. Other than just pointing out detailed minor difference's in each characters personality, that's about all I had to do with the tweaking of his plot. So now understanding what he wanted to do all of his decisions worked for me. That's where I decided to give him the space to establish his new characters and set-up a new storyline.

Again, let me reiterate and take the responsibility. I had a big problem with the original series going at break neck speed in terms of the story and the introduction of characters. I think you lose some potential impact doing things too quickly. So this time around I told Mike I wanted to do it in a proper pace and to do it as much as possible from Dane's point of view. If people think it's too slow and it takes too long to get to the old familiar characters it is all on my shoulders. Not Mikes, not the editor's...but mine...

Now on to the story...our story starts out with Bueller a Military wannabe. A desk job commander. As he is relaxing in his home and preparing his report and recommendations for whether Dane is reliable enough to get this mission done: finding the vampire responsible for breaking into one of our Air Force bases. It is obvious from his tone that he doesn't like Dane and in fact considers him a "freak" a "monster" because he has super powers. I thought Mike's introduction of this characterization of people like Dane was really needed and started to ground both the humans and the supers in the WW's world. The first page also establishes nicely that the infiltrator is a vampire since all of the base's camera's could not record an image of the infiltrator. Basic vampire lore...

Then we switch scene's and Bueller is seen (with full military escort) finally arriving at Dane's desert location to convince him to come out of retirement and take the mission. We've visually set-up that Dane and his crew are on an archeological dig. When in reality (tho' we don't say it because it's not important...but for the fans who want to know everything) the scientific dig is actually cover for the fact that this is one of the covert entrances to the new Wetworks complex. Notice I don't tell you where this site is exactly. Anyways before Bueller goes down to meet with Dane for the first time he instructs one of his men (a sniper of course) to go to a high location and wait for his signal. Bueller then proceeds down the sand steps to meet Dane seemingly deep in thought discovering something. Oh and the two leather clad people next to Dane are none other that Pilgrim and Jester. Fans of the old series will know that Pilgrim is the Wetworks team sniper and Jester is the #2 assasin, here they are on bodygaurd duty for Dane. Again all of this is not pointed out in the script or the plot. Has nothing to do with the actual story or pace, just added flavor for the background.

Now we have Dane and Bueller meeting for the first time. We've already established that Bueller thinks Dane is a freak, now we show that Dane has no regard for this "paper" officer. Yes Dane does his own research and knows that Bueller has no real military "credits" to his name, so thruout this scene Dane barely looks at Bueller and in fact keeps his back to him most of the time. Page three is also notable for having better shots of Pilgrim and Jester. This is the first ever present day shots of any of the old Wetworks teammates in new costumes.

Another thing very important about this page is the last close-up of Dane as he negotiates with Bueller. We see all up and down his face remnants of one long scar that wraps his face, and we see thin metal rods on various parts of his face. These are medical rods used to hold broken bones in place in order for them to heal. Again this is not talked about within the script or even written in the plot (I added it in) but this is a visual clue (again only for those old fans) as to an event that led to Dane losing then regaining his golden symbiote. It is also the one change I am making in the Death of the Blood Queen in the original series. The death scene as originally done is intact except for one scene insert. This reveal is planned for a future issue of the new Wetworks. And will reveal the only change in the Dane personality and his present day motivations.

Page four has our two military types negotiating terms namely Dane will hunt down this lone vampire (a simple mission for a man who brought a vampire nation to its knees) in exchange for the government using its scientist to revive Mother-One (found dead and mummified in the first Preface). Midway thru Bueller does his hand "signal" motioning his sniper to fire on Dane. Dane turns on his gold symbiote and "catches" the snipers bullet in his hand in mid-flight using his psi-powers he displayed in the first preface story. Bueller does this as his test for Dane, to see if he is all he is suppose to be, according to his files...

Then we "see" the bullet hovering in the air where Dane stopped it, it is shaking with pent up energy...Dane releases it and it continues on a new path redirected to hit one of Buellers Jeeps which in true comic's physics of course explodes. The explosion knocks the human Bueller off his feet but the super human Dane stands immobile against the exploding energy.

On the last page we see a humiliated Bueller on his butt reaching into his jacket for his pistol, Dane (with his back to Bueller) dares him to fire upon him...scene is abruptly cut we are brought back to Bueller in his house writing up his report (the location of the first scene of this story) and he reveals to the camera for the first time his other hand, his gun hand with a fresh new medical dressing covering his entire forearm, answering the question if Bueller had enough balls to "try" to fire upon Dane in the desert...THE END...

This story (of Mike's) handily introduces a whole lot of issues and a new character but does it on the surface simply and underneath carries alot of implications and set-ups. It sets-up the inner tension between Bueller and Dane and why. It set-ups the first seemingly "small" story event (capturing this vampire that infiltrated the Air Base) which will project the first few issues of the new Wetworks series you are reading. For new fans it introduces strange new things and people and powers...just introduces. And for old fans in brings back some old friends with some new iterations that opens up whole new questions about what happened between when we last saw them...cudos for Mike it does alot and does it well...

So there with both preface story's you have all you need to know to start off the new Wetworks series...

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Now we get back to the real stuff...In an effort to make this blog complete I will include commentary about the two preface stories that proceeded and set-up Wetworks:Worldstorm #1...

I wrote this one so it has all the old military flavors from the first three issues from the original series of WW's. It's in my blood, the only way I can write Wetworks. I see everything from Dane's point of view. the military point of view...

Believe it or not I had not yet met-up with Mike, let alone finalized any plan for how the new WW's book would shake out. So how do we announce reviving Wetworks without being specific as to what form the new team will take? In all the various ideas we came up with as to what the new Wetworks would be like we always came to the conclusion that Mother needed to play a major role. At the very least since all military research seems to be closely connected to something called "cross'communications" where all units will be engulfed in a flood of information, Mother-One was the best candidate to be able to realize that for Dane. So she needed to be the focus for the first preface story...plus we had hinted at a possible romantic link between her and Dane in the original series, so this seemed like the best place emotionally to start...

The only other thing that was certain in my mind was that Dane would be totally in charged this time around. After having the government try to control him, and then IO try to chain him, then Waering try to use him as a patsy, in the new series Dane decides his team is his sole responsibility therefore they will do only what he deems neccesary. So I began there...

How would Dane go about reforming his old team and build an organization around it?

With all of Dane's past involvement (Team 7, the Gen13 powers, IO, Raven, Wildcats, Waering, etc.) he has formed a massive and powerful network of proffessionals and rouges. Any of which would glady do Dane a favor or two. So he pirates anyone that he deems perfectly suited to his needs.

Dane has always been a man of a few words (tho' as we will see in the new series he has in his old age become abit more yakkier than his younger self) always a man of action people exposed to Dane seem to be quickly attracted to his command presence. Well that's how Dane sees it. Reality is he is a psi-power that is yet to be rated and classified. Being the personality type that believes in self determination, doing things for yourself, he doesn't believe in the supernatural, and therefore ignores any sign that he is a "magical" being. Regardless of his belief he is constantly "broadcasting" his psi-awareness around him. It works subtely, he "thinks" he needs a certain person to volunteer for a deadly mission, that person all of a sudden volunteers for said mission. His psi-power subtely suggesting to that person Dane's desires. All of his lifes successes are attribital to this one fact of his powers. Now let's think people...Dane's reputation as a military leader has been made upon taking the most dangerous missions, and soldiers gladly dying for Dane (look back at the first three issues of the original WW's series where Flattop and Crossbones gave their lives for Dane and the team so they could get out of an ambush) now what would happen to our leaders proud mind if he realized that no one ever "volunteered" for these deadly missions but were all "coerced" by his psi-power? Think of the guilt...

Guilt is the word that encapsulates the current Dane, and haunts the mood of this first preface story. His narration of this first story is moody and haunting (thanx for the wonderful script by Arcudi). Centering on his guilt that the team was last betrayed by their benefator Waering and Dane could not protect them. It is also melancholy.

We start out with a large jump jet landing on a desert plateau.

Trivia***This plateau and entranceway was born in the later issues of the first series, as we knew for certain that Dane's psi-powers were being enhanced by the symbiotes, it was getting to a point where if Dane ever got angry he could accidentally blow a man's brain to pieces. So how does Dane let off steam safely. So I thought of this desert plateau totally devoid of life (maintained that way by Waerings group) where he could vent his anger to his hearts desire and never worry about killing anyone. Not even a mouse. Within the adjacent mountain face is a hidden doorway leading back into the old Wetworks complex.

A robed figure leads a group of heavily armored soldiers into the doorway and underground complex. Yes these are human WW's soldiers. All ex-Delta Force. This also is a big difference from the original series. I knew I needed WW's to come back as the "A" team but I wanted them to have backup that weren't superheroes. So, they go into the heart of this underground complex and find a locked doorway and Dane in his dialogue announces he has found Mother-One. A telling point is when a soldier tells Dane that it will take a minute or two to get an explosives team there, Dane is impatient and tells the soldier to clear the door because he is about to blast it with his psi-powers. This eagerness brings back hints at a possible past relationship between Dane and Mother-One. One we always hinted at but never realized.

Upon blasting the door open we find a mummified and dead Mother-One lying next to a massive computer. We are told that this is the old Waering mainframe. The why Mother is found there goes again back to the old series. There was an issue where we find Mother-One may be demented. There is a scene where she is alone in her room talking to someone, that someone turns out to be the mainframe computer. It talks back to her conversationally but reacts to Mother-One as Rachels long dead mother. Waering had reworked Mothers memory long ago before she became WW's to thinking his mainframe AI was in fact Mother-One's own dead mother. An effort to control Mother-One, he knew how powerful she would become and so used this as a safety key to disarm her if need be. So in Mother-Ones last days she seeks refuge with the computer core she thought was her mother. In the last days of the Vampire wars the Waering complex was overrun by the Night Tribes. Mother-One fought a retreating action to the only secure place she knew, the mainframe AI'a main core. It was built to withstand any attack and did. Only problem is it was now a radioactive site and thru the years even tho' Mother was able to contact Dane's mind and lead him back to her, it also slowly killed what was still human in her, and so she died. Being also part computer herself she spent most of that time wondering what Dane would do next. She correctly knew Dane would restart Wetworks again so what would he need from her if he found her? A complete copy of the old Waering mainframe computer database/network. To use to rebuild a new complex. And one other thing...the last conscious download of her consciousness before she physically died. She somehow knew that Dane would try to revive her and would need this if she were to be the same...so Dane gingerly picks up Mother's decaying corpse, half-machine, half-petrified flesh, and within her petrified fingers is the harddrive with all Dane needs to start his Dream.

That ends the first preface story heralding the first news that Wetworks will rise again as a team.

Apologies for not having pictures...still hunting down hi-rez files of the original colored pages of this story. When I get them I will repost this with the pictures.

I do have all of the colored files of the second preface story. In my next post I will comment on that story and fill that post with panels from that story...

Then I will combine all the images in a flash movie for those adversed to reading...til next time people...

Monday, October 02, 2006

There's seems to be (to put it mildly) a PR mix-up as to where Wetworks fits in to the Worldstorm relaunch and whether Worldstorm is a relaunch or what.

Let's handle that quickly, as stated Wetworks in this new incarnation is a collaboration by Mike Carey and myself. We started it awhile ago and then were asked to postphone it for what was then strictly a relaunch of only the original books of Wildstorm from the Image days. In the context that an event would happen prior to the launch of the new books that would render all continuity that went before it to naught. Meaning we would re-start each book as if new with whatever continuity we wanted to keep from the old books or not. It was to be a mature readers line so as to give creators space to really modernize the books.

That having been established we were told to write our books totally within their own world. Meaning it was decided editorially that there would be no need of prefacing or acknowledging the big event that would create this new status quo. There was actually talk of rewriting Wetworks issue #1 (four months after we did it) to incorporate said big event, but that was soon deemed unnecessary. So Wetworks proceeded.

But since we needed to postphone Wetworks to coincide with the new Universe

(I mean if we launched Wetworks months before the big event then when said event actually happened we'd have to start Wetworks all over again. If not we'd look silly being the only book that didn't react in some way to the fact that there was a new status quo. In essence we'd have Rebooted the book twice.)

All this time since Wildcats would return to be the flagship book everything about the event and relaunch would center around this book. It was therefore promised to keep Wetworks in the tail end of the relaunch's if not the last as originaly planned.

So it was decided that in between said big event and way back when there would be released small back-up stories to gear up the audience for the new Wetworks books. Ergo our preface lead-ups to the launch of the book, which were originally written for issue one.

Now we jump ahead in time to two weeks before Wetworks is scheduled to come out and we find due to circumstances Wildcats is not ready but Wetworks is so to my surprise Wetworks is the first book in the relaunch and labeled such. The book that was decided a year ago would not need to acknowledge the Worldstorm event.

So Wetworks (the most thought out and planned of all the books, years in advanced) gets slapped for not having aything to do with Worldstorm and therefore not being planned and in fact being downright confusing.

Now these things happen, we're all human so you take what you can and make the best out of it. So we plow ahead with Wetworks as planned as per how Mike and I have mapped this whole Wetworks tale.

My only real regret is to not have pushed for the republishing of the back-up preface stories that set-up issue #1. I am working on that, even if I have to make a flash storyboard using those panels and retell those short stories online. For clarities sake and for the total package it should be done. At the very least the TPB should have it all in it.

Friday, September 22, 2006

The time Jim brought up the idea to do Wetworks again to the time we actually laid anything to paper was a long year of going thru many variations of where Wetworks could go. It was real hard because alot of the ideas were good but I couldn't make sense with my own mind how to justify bringing the team back. Jim gave no limits to the book saying we could do whatever we wanted to do, meaning rewrite history if we wanted.

The basic problem was I couldn't take what was left of the old team because there basically was nothing left. So going back to the time right before the symbiotes started to change them was the only alternative at the time (this was before Carey). But that still left a big question mark. That version of the team was too powerful, especially with Dane's hibernating psi-power. Since we had the Authority in the Universe the question always crept up if something bad enough happened that needed Wetworks type fire power then how could they get to it before the Authority got their hands into it. Wouldn't happen in that universe. We somehow needed a small event that would flow under The Authority's (and now) The Wildcats radar. But a small event that would somehow need a big team like Wetworks. So again Wetworks coming back made no sense.

Then Carey came in with his idea (spoiler in another post "Liquid Vapor#1) and I thought great start the book out with a seemingly small matter that the government deems Dane is ultimately qualified for, the engagement of Vampires. And all he askes for is the revival of the dead Mother-One cyborg. Simple track down one bad guy and get Mother-One back, good trade. All this set up in sneak peek issues of the past year or so. (maybe I should re-publish them here for clarity's sake)) Well the simple mission turns to bad to big to humoungously tragic. Remember this seemed a small matter so he had a small team assembled for this, less a strike team than a specialty team. Towards the end of the ten issue story arch Dane will need much more fire power. Wonder who that is?

So as set up in sneak peek issues there is a scene where Dane is talking to the Government about this mission for him and standing quietly in the background are two leather strapped gaurds. A male and a female. The color scheme of the desert scene was yellow to hide the fact that these two wore gold symbiotes. Yup they were none other than "Jester" and "Pilgrim" from Team #1. Insinuating along with the bowling ball helmeted soldiers in the other sneak peek that Dane also had human soldiers assembled around him too. This all hinting at the tale that Dane had used his vast resources and network from all of his years in service to form his own group, and yes that meant the cornerstone to his group would be Wetworks Team #1. The ones the old fans are asking about and the ones the new fans don't know anything about yet.

So for that immediate question of will we see the old team again? The answer is yes they are intact, complete, and are getting ready by doing push-ups and playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter in the background of the events of the first arc's. Tho' I must ask you all for patience. Mike Carey has devised an all consuming tale and some mighty fine new characters for us all to sink our teeth into. I am so confident of Carey's prowess that I have given him ten issues to introduce us to this new status quo. If you like what we did before wait til you see the trip Mike has in store for us. He has many of the same type of ideas Brandon and I had but his execution is much more grand and soild and therefore needs its own pace.

So for the old fans glad you're here and stay in tuned to meet some fantastic new characters and for the wait we will reward you with old dear friends...

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

This is an example of something I really get a kick out of. First I draw a plain naked figure then cut and paste it multiple times then print it out lightly and then take markers and such and apply different clothing designs. This one example is for a vampire lord....

Red is one of my alltime favorite Wetworks characters and one of the characters Mike insisted on writing. Red use to be a flambouyant character being the right hand to the Blood Queen. Now she is a sort of down trodden figure. A shadow of what she was in the past. So she wears clothes that show a semblance of what she was tho' nowhere near as flashy and bold as what she would have worn when she still was a Royal bodygaurd. Her hair is either pulled up and trapped or down covering her face. Mike prefers the hair up and I like it down.

One thing that I love doing, and I hope will get compiled into the TPB (my how we plan ahead) are design work stuff. There are so many millions of designs bouncing in my head that I hate to just use the first creative thought that pops into my head. I am infatuated with the film approach to design where we essential sit down and plan what we want our designs to say, how it should impact the viewers, what we want the characters to visually evoke. Historically I have gotten into most of my past deadline problems because I've been off planning and designing. Which is why it usually takes months for me to finish the first issue of anything. At this point in my career it is more satisfyling than actually drawing a solid piece of art.

Anyways, here are two examples of some of the design gone into Ashe. This character we wanted a drab sort of feel, compact, and practical hence the monochromatic color scheme. Mike had wanted a large trenchcoat, I compromised by giving him the lines of a coat but made it tight fitted. I wanted to show the practicallity of this character. Being a werewolf he transforms into huge beast form and back into small humanoid form. So he wears clothes that are made of a stretcheable material that will move with his changing form.

These pieces were done in Photoshop on a computer called a Tablet PC which allows you to draw on it's monitor like a tablet. It is the closest thing to actually drawing on a computer. I have recently gone back to a Wacom tablet. But when and if the Tablet PC's get faster processors will gladly return to the freedom of a Tablet computer.

I have always tried to rock the boat in terms of color. From those days when Brian Haberlin, Alex Sinclair, and I were trying to figure out how to use Photoshop for comicbooks, to when I let us say bewildered the world with the not so well recieved color job on issue #1 of Stormwatch.

Color is in my blood. I love the way it shapes things I draw. In fact right now I am for the first time oil painting and having a blast....

But anyways, here we are with Wetworks #1 again and I couldn't pass the challenge to try colors again. This time I had an accomplice...Wendy Broome. She has been coloring for Wildstorm FX since the old school daze and just recently this year went freelance because she gave birth to hers and Matt's first child. So I liked what she had been doing prior to going freelance and asked if she would not like to color Wetworks for me.

Thruout a couple of months we had worked out a formula that you don't really get to see kick in til issue #2 of Wetworks. The formula goes something like this...

Since I was going back to my old penciling style with alot of blacks and cross-hatching I decided to change it up abit, the pencils that is, in terms of the highlight areas of the drawings. That meant that I would consciously be trying to open up the highlight areas of the drawing leaving as much open space with no lines in the highlight areas. So that leaves alot of detail in the darker portions of the drawings and an open area within the highlights. This would leave Wendy room to add in color an extra highlight that's sole purpose was to accenuate the forms/shapes in the highlight areas I didn't draw. She would in fact be drawing in color, albeit only in the highlight areas. And conversely since most of the drawing is in the darker portions there is very little if any color work or variations there.

I thought and still do that this is a better compromise to the "traditional" color method of trying to recolor in color detail every portion of the drawing. I remember in the old daze we use to get a kick out of turning off the black plate and seeing how well we could shade the drawings without any of the black ink lines. Back then it was fun for awhile but especially when you got complicated inks to color it becomes redundant work and sometimes overpowering.

So Wendy finally gets the hang of it in the first half of issue #2. As she e-mails me the pages I go crazy over its simplicity and impact. When something looks good and looks like its simple that's a good sign that it works....well...

Then Wildstorm FX goes thru another bout of needing to bring back work into the studio and top of that list is Wetworks. So Wendy is yanked off the book by issue three. Thereafter the book gets colored in house in the studio by Wildstorm FX. I'm sure the "pit" (as Wildstorm FX is affectionately called internally) will do a fantastic job I know them all personally but still, especially for Wendy and the time we spent developng this style...I will miss Wendy's input, and will be forever sorry for her not getting the chance to dazzle me with more issue of Wetworks...

***NOTE***If you haven't read the book yet this post has minor spoilers thruout...You know it's still a kick to get your stuff published and to break open that box of advanced copies and pour thru your book like you were still a kid buying comics at your local store. Even tho' I did this issue more than awhile ago it was still a thrill opening it up for the first time as a real, in your hands, comicbook. Even tho' I am "close" to the artwork having seen it a million times there still is a magic to seeing it reduced down in size (techNOTE:comics are drawn 11X17 and then reduced down to comicbook size when printed) and colored and packaged as an actual comicbook...When we started this process to bring back Wetworks I had mixed thoughts. I wanted to draw these familiar characters again but logically couldn't figure out how to do it. Meaning, Wetworks team#1 is a big team with alot of fire power so if we brought them back what would they do? I didn't want to revive everything that we did before with the first series and redo it, a sort of 2.0 version. Or say hey all the vampires are alive again let's kill them again. I wanted a new storyline. We went thru every story from a planet of warring creatures of the night where Wetworks would transport to and from that planet doing WETmissions ala Vietnam, to an extremely depressing maxi series of Dane one by one revisiting each member of the team in order to kill them with his hands (Papa's hands) because he knew the suits were about to gruesomely kill thier host. Talk about Wetworks within Wetworks...Another thing I wanted, and I'll be honest in this blog...I've always been proud of what Brandon and I created both of us having never really created a whole new comicbook before that, but have always lamented the "way" we introduced people into that HUGE world. I thought we did it too fast, introducing too many characters all at once all the time never giving the readers sufficient time to let all the implications for each character to really sink in.So this time I wanted to do it slowly and as much as possible from one point of view. From Dane's point of view, as he see's and reacts to characters and situations for the first time. So enter Mike Carey. ***SPOILER WARNING***He had this great story whose very premise was what if there were another world of Vampires that weren't tied down to the rules of Mother Nature that our Earth bound vampires are restricted to? What if Vampires could freely roam the sunlit surface of a planet? Any planet? Now that's a threat worthy of a return.***SPOILER WARNING***Jim had this feeling that Mike and I could somehow wrap that around Wetworks. I called up Mike in England and we chatted up a storm of ideas. It turns out he actually read and liked the original series because we dared to take all the genre's we liked and smash them together. Well, Brandon and I did that unconsciously, wait til you see what Mike has done deftly going in and out of genre's like he was born there. Now I loved not only his reverance for the original characters/storyline but also his fountain of new ideas and what smashing all of that together into one world would mean for the drama of a new story. So I decided along with my earlier thoughts that Mike should have all the room needed to setup and tell this story. So readers beware and get ready for a story that in a span of ten "horror/sci-fi/action" comicbook issues will unfold in real time and build into the rollercoaster ride that Wetworks is known for.So, for those expecting a "thoughtful sensitive disertation of Man's hazardous desire to be a hero in a world that clearly needs heroes" no. This was and is an Action driven story. With Mike's expertise we are now telling it properly with proper introductions and depth but we are still basically telling a super-fantastic story of some super-fantastic humans in some really super-fantastic situations. Again, because of Mike the characters are more sunstantial and the situations are more ordered and based therefore making the horror elements truer.This first issue nicely introduces the main characters and the main storyline that an unknown vampire threat has arisen and Dane is needed to take that threat down. In exchange he wants the Mother-One cyborg brought back to life...romance? A human element from Dane. Or is there just a practical need for Dane. I mean (as hinted at in previous Wildstorm books) Dane seems to be rebuilding his Wetworks team. There are a few pages where we've placed in the background what looks like soldiers with new hi-tech gear. The guys with the bowling balls for helmets. Those are Dane's men as shown by the close-up on one page of the new Wetworks patch on their left sleeves. Yup these are regular human men, all ex-special forces with my take on the new advanced cross-talk warfare armour/gear. Their primarly missions are one of security, here Dane's bodygaurds. You will see these guys in the backgrounds every now and then and will hear them talking to Dane thru communications links. We don't talk about it in the stories (because it has nothing to do with the flow of the story) but these guys are always around Dane. Whether you can see them or not. Dane is never alone. Well, never is pretty strong, eh? Most of the time....Oh, and trivia...Red's first scene where she is with a guy in a hotel room. Originally this book was slated for Mature Readers so the original scene as drawn and inked and colored was quite a bit more racy that what you see here now. Maybe some time later on we will be able to show the original page as it still stands on the original artwork.The armoured guys on the rooftop watching Dane are not Wetworks. By listening to their conversation one of them doesn't even know who Dane is. These are straight up military with their version of the advance armour. You can say these are IO's guys checking Dane out.The touch about Red's addiction is Mr. Mike's genius. Making her a tragic figure with a once illustrious background. Remember she used to be the Blood Queens right hand. Second in combat only to the dreaded Blood Queen which Dane killed in the original series.Ab-death is a blast. Notice I have tailored him after the Frankenstien monster somewhat. He is a hulking figure that to tell the truth noone really knows anything about. You will notice I draw him into the background thruout the issues.Mother's operating room scene...wish I had three more pages at least. I love these kind of scene's. The last page is again pure Mike. Where it looks like the werewolf (yes he is a werewolf) is gonna smash Red in the face then pulls out his detective badge...brilliant!Well that's the first issue...enjoy...

THIS IS A TEST...just trying out some new software and another way of showing artwork online. Instead of still images that everyone wishes they could "really" zoom into what about video zooming into still images.

You see I got my advanced copies of the book last week and thought some of it printed a tad bit dark. But then again I told Wendy I wanted a dark look. Live and learn. Anyways, I wanted to show off some of the inks that Trev did that might not be too apparent with the published book and since I'm not actually allowed to publish hi-rez images of the pages on the net I thought hey what about videos of the images that zoom into/pan into the pages? No one can print video stills onto t-shirts, right? Well, and make it look good, at least.

So here are some of the panels from the first issue up close and personal. I got a new computer just to do stuff like this my blog and videos and stuff. It came with a program called Muvee. Where you can load in video clips (or in this case images) tell the camera where to look at each image and add a music file then presto the program arranges all the images into a sequence that is timed to the beats of the music you've provided and spits out a video. So in others words I take five minutes to load images and a song and the program churns out a video that looks like I took hours to plan and put together...a perfect quick way for a busy penciler to advertise comicbook artpages he's taken hours, days, years to bring to life...I think.

The book comes out today, I think, so I will post my thoughts on and insights and trivia on the actual printed first issue next time...

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About Me

I love the process of creating stories and characters. I could (and do) spent most of my time in my favorite pastime "World biulding" That is creating or re-creating worlds for characters to wallow in.